In the global marketplace, goods are often stored, transported and shipped on pallets. Conventional pallets are made of wood as known in the art, but may be made of other materials or combinations of other materials, or of wood with other materials.
The pallets often are owned by an independent third party, and provided to the distributors, marketers, shippers and retailers of goods on a rental or lease basis. The owner of the pallets has an interest to track the whereabouts of its pallets, both to ensure that proper rental or lease payments are made and to ensure that pallets are not transported to locations that are not permitted. The loss of pallets also can be a problem.
Radio frequency identification (RFID) devices can be associated with or attached to pallets as a means of tracking them. The RFID devices can be designed to work in conjunction with a network of RFID readers or interrogators at specified locations, which collect tracking data from the RFID devices associated with specific pallets when those pallets pass through the readers' interrogation area, which can be passive (e.g. all pallets entering the docking-bay door of a warehouse can be automatically scanned) or manual (e.g. dock worker manually scans a pallet when it arrives at his workstation).
Pallets are often mistreated. Even when they are not, they meet very demanding and harsh conditions. Therefore, it is desirable that the RFID device be shielded as much as is practical from the harsh conditions seen by pallets when in use in global commerce.